PREFACE. XXX111 



some sensations, which in the present rage 

 for agriculture, I know not whether it 

 be quite safe to avow. Considering, how- 

 ever, the scene we have been contem- 

 plating, as a school of superior education, 

 a man who steps forward as a professor 

 on the subject, may be pardoned for a 

 confession, in which he will perhaps be 

 joined by not a few devoted to the sport, 

 that it is not without an evil eye they have 

 had, from one year to another, to mark the 

 increasing progress of cultivation, which 

 has been driving from their native hills the 

 denizens of the mountain ; and with the 

 exception of two or three of the most 

 northern counties, has gone pretty nearly 

 to the total extinction of the breed in 

 England. Our acquaintance with them, 

 indeed, has become so limited, as scarcely 

 to admit elsewhere the due application of 

 a hint, that wherever it lies within a man's 

 reach to have his dog awakened to the 

 first perception of his own powers, by a 

 sufficient acquaintance with this species 

 of game, he will find his account in neg- 

 lecting no means whatever to accomplish 



